Skype is done compatible with the Facebook accounts

With the new beta of Skype, Facebook accounts can easily do video conferencing.

Skype, a subsidiary of Microsoft player in the world of VoIP, now accounts for more than 30 million members permanently connected. To continue to increase its user base, the service announced a partnership with Facebook, the first global social network. A boon for Skype when you know that Facebook is approaching slowly from one billion members, although the 200 million Internet users remaining to pass this course are obviously hard to find.


Available in beta version, Skype 5.7 makes it possible to connect directly with their Facebook account on the software before placing video calls. Being short registration via Skype using the Facebook Connect module should indeed encourage users to use the service. Especially a list management allows friends "Skype" easily one of his contacts.

Note also the appearance of this version of another improvement (reserved for the PC version of the software at the moment) which is to enrich the screen sharing now available to many "viewers" simultaneously. Remains an option fee.

>> Download Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows
>> Download Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac

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Test: Antec Solo II, silence above all…

We were expecting maybe more changes in the side of the Antec Solo II. But the old design is still compatible with the world of silence.

Antec SOLO II

 For:
The silent operation
The glossy look
The fan upscale

 Against:
The price
The position of the power supply
The meaning of hard drives

It's been a while since the Antec Solo II dragged to the editor and we finally decided to relaunch our test cases with him. The manufacturer has used the past to a neat packaging and this model is no exception to the rule. The Solo II is shiny, metallic paint like a pretty car. Who says gloss paint, said a lot of fingerprints on it! Indeed, this case is no exception and it is particularly addicted to fingerprint, which can quickly ruin its aesthetic efforts. Well, one wipe and back again like new.

First positive, two screws that remain attached to the wall can see the lair of the beast. These sheets of access are also covered with black insulating rigid material that improves the sound camouflage. What is surprising since the opening is the location of food on the top (the old, memories ...), the hard drive bays are in alignment with the tower and the four rods for mounting 5.25 "are classics, but we shall return later.

Outside, we find the two 3.5 mm jacks for audio, two USB 2.0 ports and two sockets for USB 3.0 blue, a big button "power" illuminated in blue when the tower is lit, a small button to "reset" a discreet and disk activity light. An air vent is provided on the top for food, a good place to use the power supply fan to create airflow consistent. Welcome a further opportunity as we shall see, the breakdown is not the highlight of the Solo II. For inside, precisely, there is only one of 120 mm rear fan that draws attention by being mounted on Silent Block, expected not to make a fart noise. Unfortunately there is no pass-pipes for the water cooling fans on the back of the box, but this is an eyelet for LAN party fans who want to secure their investment.

  

Test Setup:
- ASUS ROG Crosshair Formula IV
- AMD Phenom II X4 980
- ATI Radeon HD 6850
- 2 x 4 GB Corsair Vengeance LP
- Seasonic 460 Watts XSeries (Fanless)
- Noctua NH-U9B
- OCZ Agility 3 120 GB
- HDD 500 GB Samsung 7200 rev / min

Antec has a small installation manual in every language possible, to indicate each location and function. But no step by step how to mount the hard drives, DVD player or an additional fan in front of the disk is provided. For a beginner, it will not necessarily easy to find, though, with a little patience, we can see a door on the front of the box provides access to dust filter fan (not supplied) and the cradle of hard drives.

Moreover, these drives can be mounted either through the small silicone spacers to reduce vibration, or on a bed of spring tension on both sides of the cage. Second positive point, the manufacturer of the case has everything to accommodate 2.5-inch SSDs directly with the silicone tips. A DSS that it is also possible to mount directly flat on the chassis. Original, practical and in some configurations because the Solo II offers only three locations 3.5 ".

     

The location of the optical drive is unfortunately not as well finished as the Bay of HDD storage. Four rods are fixed on the drive that is then slipped into a rail of the 5.25 "bay. What we are criticizing here is not the finish of this mounting system, but it lacks an anti-vibration that comes to be lacking when playing a movie or music, the vibration of the drive is being greatly affected.

Food is not too much of a problem position. Four screws on the back keeps it as before, but like the optical drive, we would like a system of vibration protection, handy in case of a power supply fan. Slips on the motherboard at an angle to fit into the holes of the plate interface and then match the copper spacers provided in the bag of screws from the housing.

If you forget to mount the CPU cooler, do not worry, Antec leaves a gaping access backplate to the motherboard with the ability to mount / dismount the fastener of your cooling system preferred. Otherwise, the cables run well at the back to make space between hard drives and the motherboard. By cons, we are not convinced by the HDD cage that falls right in front of the power cable from the motherboard (on our config 'test), which does not help connecting his own way. The cable-management is fairly standard and the passages are well placed to supply the different locations, necklaces are made ??to refine the installation and finish on a high note.

      

As we have seen in the editing part, this case is pretty good overall design with a "legacy" including through the supply position. But is it damaging to the quality of this case or its thermal dissipation? Also fulfill its contract on the noise? To get to the bottom, we submitted the Solo II to our usual tests (a small burn session of 30 minutes with the apps that go to the CPU, GPU and hard).

Result, these tests allow us to say that this case is really quiet, knowing that our configuration was placed at 50 cm from the workstation and proved silent in idle and almost inaudible burn in complete silence. So, put under a desk or in a salon, it will be for sure very discreet.

As we can see with this graph, the only fan provided in this case does not provide a heat dissipation than average. The possibilities of creating an air flow of interest is very limited, and it will invest in at least one additional fan to be placed before the hard drives to improve this situation. This explains a descent in temperature not optimal. FYI, we took our measurement points in the upper part between optical drive and power supply, where there is an empty space, to avoid false measurements, and also down below the hard drive cage, and on the heatsink of the graphics card and hard drives.

Antec gives us here a case of good quality, metallic black, old school design, but hands down filling his contract on the acoustic part. We do have some complaints about mounting the optical drive and the food that lack of vibration attenuation device. This is not fatal, but a case of this stature, we expect better. For the price, € 120 on average, because we expected a finish a little further even if the case remains good overall, to mount the proper config ', if you know how to go about avoiding small traps that the Solo II provided for beginners. Its fan Silent Block is really quiet, and we appreciate both effective systems for setting records. In the end, the Solo II is a good product, but is quite expensive compared to some competitors who do not lack arguments.

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AMD: between adjustments, innovations and cancellations

Small dot on the latest information from AMD. Between non-compatible sockets, price adjustments, cancellations and new processor ...

Things are moving towards AMD. Whether through information obtained through official channels or through good old leaks, we learned a lot of things these days about them. Already, we have confirmation that the sockets FM2 - the future platform that will host Trinity - will not be backwards compatible with Socket FM1. Bad news. On future AMD APUs, the foolproof have indeed changed and it goes from 905 to 904 pins. If the motherboard manufacturers will be happy, but this may mark a small halt in sales of FM1 APUs in the months ahead. And AMD could be a sad record with the life of the socket ...

It's a shame, as new processors FM1 continue to arrive on the market. This is the case of the Athlon II X4 651, which replaces the 631 and takes the Llano die while disabling the graphics core. Its frequency increases from 2.6 to 3 GHz for a TDP of 100W, all for $ 92, slightly cheaper than the Athlon II X4 640 AM3 in when it should be more efficient.

As a result, AMD took the opportunity also to realign the prices on the side of APU's A-Series. The dual-core A4 and A4-3300-3400 both increased by $ 2 in the depth of listings from respectively $ 66 and $ 71. However, the price of the A6-3500 increases from $ 89 to $ 85. Finally, AM3 +, the Bulldozer FX-6100 will see its price drop by $ 10 from $ 165 to $ 155.

Finally, we note the cancellation of the Deccan platform that was supposed to come and replace the Brazos 2.0 platform. The APUs, which bore the names of Krishna and Wichita Code should succeed to the Zacate E-Series and Ontario in the C-Series. They were to be engraved in 28 nm and we can therefore assume that cancellation is to the account of the difficulties GlobalFoundries to take his time on this process. But rumors that the chips come out eventually TSMC plants, such as APUs platform Brazos. Nevertheless, the Brazos 2.0 platform will have to wait the future platform Kerala and APUs Kabini in 2013 to see the arrival of a successor. With any luck, this will push AMD to speed things up as much as possible to stick to the arrival of Windows 8 ...

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A chart SAS to 12 Gb/s…

Les pros pourront augmenter les performances de leurs solutions de stockage avec cette nouvelle carte SAS à 12 Gb/s.

LSI Corporation est la première société à avoir développé et lancé sur le marché la nouvelle interface SAS remplaçant avantageusement la vieillissante interface SCSI. Mais celle-ci reste pour le moment limitée aux normes SATA à 6 Gb/s.

La société californienne ne voulant pas être freinée pour proposer des solutions de stockage à très haut débit pour les entreprises, elle sort une carte supportant un débit de 12 Gb/s basée sur du PCI-Express 3.0 x8, qui permet de traiter plus efficacement le flux de données arrivant sur le bus. Point positif, cette carte reste rétro-compatible avec les anciens modèles de disques en SATA 2 ou 3. De quoi monter un un joli SAN avec 32 HDD à 15.300 tr/mn pour offrir un débit pouvant monter à 3 Go/s en écriture... Oui ma bonne dame ! Des débits que pourra atteindre le SATA 4 ?

View the original article here

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Galaxy modified finally will leave to Germany

Samsung does not want to miss Christmas in Germany and consents to change its shelf for her to leave the country.

 

The Galaxy Tab expected to return on the shelves of German stores in the coming days, since Samsung is about to deliver a modified version of the tablet to resellers. Remember, the shelf of Korean is prohibited from selling Apple's complaint and the injunction granted by Justice of the Rhine.

A complaint which related in particular the similarities found between the Galaxy Tab and iPad 2. So Samsung will launch a Galaxy Tab 10.1 "N" with a hull design changed and repositioned the speakers, so as not to miss the lucrative Christmas season and New Year. "We have changed our shelf to take into account the claims of Apple" simply said a Samsung spokeswoman told Reuters.

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Google Music sells from now on MP3

The Mountain View giant finally tackles with Google Music, Amazon and Apple on the front of the sale of online music ... but only in the U.S. currently.

"Finally!" Some will say. Google opens its online music store from competing with Apple's iTunes and Amazon MP3 already well established in this market. Available in beta since last May only to U.S. Internet, the Google Music service provides each user a free storage space "in the cloud" is equivalent to 20,000 shares (or approximately 100 GB).

The music can then be stored and read in streaming wherever you are or from any computer, smartphone or tablet. But Google Music will now step further by proposing the sale of securities in MP3 320 Kbps via its online store and Android Market. Rates vary from 0.69 to $ 1.29 per share, the sale of albums is also planned, and some pieces are even available (live concerts, exclusive titles, etc..) History of attracting users. Google prides itself on offering 13 million shares to launch the service by offering the catalogs of three of the four largest music producers such as Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and EMI. Warner Music is missing but it is almost certain that if successful the new service from Google, it comes quickly to the ranks.

The independent labels are also not forgotten since 1000 of them have already signed with the giant net. The Google Music Artists Hub also allows independent, in exchange for $ 25, to create their page, upload and sell their works and themselves and hope to reach 70% of revenues. The service is available to all mobile devices running at least Android 2.2 (Froyo) but for now only the U.S. can benefit, no release date for France have been brought forward.

So we see that Google does not do things like everyone else and launched its service in reverse compared to what competitors have done. Indeed, Google has launched its first beta Music by inviting users to upload to their MP3 libraries (legal or not), before launching a commercial offer to sell music. The idea of course being to accustom people to the service and then encourage them to buy music legally that is automatically donated to their storage space online, without having to upload them there (like what Amazon offers ).

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PayPal: an idea gift via Facebook

How to avoid seeking a gift idea? Send a card with PayPal money directly through Facebook!

Paypal, a global leader in money transfer on the Internet, recently introduced an application using the Facebook API to send gift cards containing an amount of money chosen arbitrarily.

   

Moreover, the application page, called Send Money, is quite clear that it targets those in search of ideas for a birthday, for example. For the transfer function requires that both players have a Paypal account and live in one of 65 countries. Will it the killer application for this Christmas? Nothing is less certain, and we would hope that people - as geeky as they are - will have much better ideas to spoil their loved ones a transfer of virtual money ...

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